redneck2, thanks ... he's very pleased for sure. He only shot two groups on Sunday, one 4-shot group with the 165gr ammunition that was pretty bad, and a 3-shot group with the 180gr ammunition that was 1.204 moa. I gave him some pointers between the first and second groups and it seemed to help. He shoots a lot of .22LR and is quite good. His girlfriend is an ex US Olympian air rifle shooter so she probably taught him a thing or two. The main points I told him to think about were not to force the rifle to the target but rather get it close and hold it there. Also, I stressed the need to try to keep everything the same (cheek weld, recoil pad pressure, left elbow, right elbow, grip, etc.) and don't try to free recoil the rifle. I think he was nervous and unsure for the first group but he settled down and realized that the .30-06 Sprg was soft shooting. He doesn't have much lightweight centerfire rifle experience but based on his second group he'll be fine. His second group is shown below.
Does Kimber now produce rifles with left hand bolts? I could possibly get interested in one if they did.
Not yet. Left handed rifles require a lot of investment without any guarantee of a decent payback. Sako and Tikka learned this the hard way. Large companies who make and sell 100,000 to 1,000,000 rifles per year can afford to make a few rifles (e.g. 10%) at a loss to round out their offerings but smaller companies aren't able to absorb those costs as easily.
I have a few Zeiss scopes, but not the newer HD-5 series. I wonder if they can still be had with the Zeiss #43 reticle. If so, that'd be about the only change I'd suggest for that rig.
I don't have any of the HD5 series either but I do have four Zeiss Conquest scopes that I bought four to six years ago and all have the RZ reticles which is by far my favorite hunting reticle. The only thing I'd change is to make it illuminated. I don't see that the #43 reticle is available in the Conquest or Terra lines. You have to step up to the Victory line for that reticle. I heard recently that Zeiss has discontinued the RZ600 reticle in the Conquest HD5 2-10x44mm model due to poor sales. Shooters are going to higher and higher magnification scopes these days, in part I think because it's too much effort to practice shooting with more practical scopes in the 10X and lower range. I spent a fair amount of time looking through and using the HD5 shown below and considered buying one of the RZ600 variants before they're all gone but the new RZ reticle isn't sufficiently better than the ones I have and the glass is definitely no better based on a fair amount of side by side comparison. The other downside is that the ocular bell is larger which necessitates using medium rings on the rifle. With the original Conquests I can use low rings if I want which is what my gf has on her Kimber 84M Montana.
My coworker sent me a photo of the rifle. It's not the best photo but it's something to look at. Before we talked about which rifle he should buy I mentioned that I have a spare Mountain Ascent stock that he can have. He likes the idea of swapping the Hunter stock for the Mountain Ascent stock and that's why he went with the Optifade dip on the scope and rings. I made the point that the rifle won't shoot any better with the MA stock but it will take off about 3/8 lb, it looks really good and offers 4+1 capacity compared to 3+1 for the Hunter. Frankly the extra round isn't important to either of us for a hunting rifle but the look and weight reduction are worth the effort ... and it's free so who wouldn't make the swap?!
I certainly wouldn't buy the MA stock if I had a Hunter because it's really expensive, but then again it's not as expensive as buying a Mountain Ascent from the get go. I guess if you want a fluted and threaded barrel, fluted bolt and bolt handle along with that nice stock you need to pay to play.
